


this world's a broken bone (melt your head aches call it home)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [18]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt Pepper Potts, Pre-Iron Man, Pre-Relationship, Tony's going to make it better, it's good okay just can't tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: She's bruised and bleeding and worrying about those ruined contracts papering the floor of her car, and it's only when the police ask her if there is anyone she wants them to call that she realizes how screwed up her life had become, because if Pepper was really thinking about it, she never would have thought that her first person to call after a major car accident would be her boss.But here she is.Calling Tony.(title from Panic at the Disco's Northern Downpour)





	this world's a broken bone (melt your head aches call it home)

**Author's Note:**

> If you're one of the people that have been following this story, I'd like to alert you to two things:
> 
> 1.) Part one of this series is a multi chapter fic featuring: more Tony and Pepper cuteness, Tony fulfilling his dream and getting to be a father, Spider-Man angst with Peter Parker getting a girlfriend, and a BAMF original character narrating it all, with much commentary about men who seem to think they don't need to ask before they take, and I am not above begging for more reads. I promise its worth the time
> 
> and 2.) If you are enjoying this series, I also have one called Infinity War Saga, featuring one shots about things that took place during and after the events of Infinity War. The first installment is Peter's POV leading up to and during THAT scene, which I know we all want to relive over and over again, right?

She's bleeding.

Pepper knows that, because her hands are red and her face is wet and even when she tries to clean it up, her hands clumsy and stiff like her fingers are too big for her now, there is too much for her to wipe away.  At another time, she might be bothered enough to try to find exactly  _where_ she was bleeding from, but at the moment she is busy trying to figure out other things- like why her ears were ringing and why her head hurt so bad and why she could not get her leg free, along with more worrisome things, like where the hell her cell phone is and the fact that those very important contracts she had to finish filling out were now covered up in broken glass, and even  _more_ blood, and also why she wasn't able to breathe.

"Miss?"  There's a great wrenching sound from beside her as the door is torn open, and Pepper spares a thought to think about how it didn't matter, because Tony would be able to put that back together again in one afternoon.  Probably.  She'd only seen him remake engines.  Maybe car doors were harder.  "Miss, are you alright?"

"Yes."  Liar.  She fumbles for the seat belt and manages to undo it, which only results in her falling against the side of the car.  "I'm fine."

"Just stay there."  She can see flashing lights, and also the head of a police men poking through the space where her car door used to be.  And a giant semi truck embedded in the side of her car.  "We'll get you out in a jiffy."

It wasn't a jiffy.  In fact, it was a rather long time, where she sat and stared at those contracts that were supposed to sent out first thing that morning and how pissed Stane would be about it, even if he had to pretend that her safety came first for HR reasons.  And also about how much everything hurt.  

"You're alright."  Pepper reasons that she must not be hurt that bad, because they sort of just grab her in an awkward under the arm grip and heave her out of the car, but maybe that was just the way they had to do it, considering how lopsided the vehicle was at the moment.  "Just a little bit more."  they were guiding her to the ambulance, and as much as Pepper did  _not_ want to go in there, even she had to admit that the hospital might be a bad idea.  "Is there anyone we can call for you?"

She goes through the list in her head.  Her mother and sister were both too far away to get here in time to help.  None of her friends would be awake at this hour.  The lady across the hall was a good choice, but she might have a heart attack on hearing the news.

"My boss,"  Is the answer she goes with, the words clumsy in her mouth, and its really a testament to how much this new job has screwed up her life, when she realizes that the only person she has left to call ( _correction: the only person she wants to call, there are plenty of others that might be better choices_ ) is the one who pays her bills.  "Tony Stark."

 

 

By the time he gets there, she's already had an MRI and discovered that she has two broken ribs and a concussion, and also needed a lot of stitches.

"There you are."  He looks distinctly ruffled, with his hair sticking in all directions and his button up shirt gone crooked with wrinkles, like he put it on in the dark and didn't bother to glance down at himself.  "I came as soon as I got the call, but they wouldn't let me back until you have permission, said I wasn't family."  He drops into the chair beside the bed like the legs had been kicked out from underneath him and drags himself forward to get close to her, careful of the wires of the IV.  "How are you?"

"In pain."  Now, in the bright light of the hospital, where she is not bleeding and cold and afraid and also in a very unflattering hospital gown, she feels silly over calling him.   _Unprofessional,_ according to the pesky little voice in her head, but they're probably past that point anyways.  "Tired."  He winces in sympathy and reaches out to smooth down her hair, which hurts but is comforting at the same time.  "Wishing I was home."

"You've just got to stay a few more hours."  Suddenly, he's become the one who was the voice of reason.  "They need to watch that head wound."

"And put in stitches."  She smiled a little feebly, and then remembered about the contracts.  She doesn't think it'd be possible for her to forget- that's what she had stared at during those long thirty minutes before anyone came to get her, cold and confused and bleeding all over the paperwork she had worked so hard to draw up.  "I lost the contracts."

"The what?"

It's stupid, that after everything, that's what makes her start crying.  "The contracts."  Tony looked just as alarmed at the idea of her crying as he always does, but tonight, he seems to have made up his mind that she is going to be able to lean on him for anything and everything and doesn't shrink away, even when she gets blood on his shirt.  "Those things that I was supposed to overnight to Rhodey, that  _had_ to be in tomorrow."  She sniffed back her tears and looked at him a little desperately, because after everything, she needed him to tell her that it was going to be okay.  "They're wrecked."

So is her car.  And her cell phone.  And her ability to breathe without feeling like a knife was been driven into her lungs.

"Screw the contracts.  They don't matter."  He gripped her hand, just one tight squeeze and then let go.  "All that matters is that you're okay."  She raises an eyebrow and he smiles a bit, even though he still looks alarmed at the sight of her sitting here, all bruised and bloody.  "Or going to be okay, anyways."

"They were very important contracts," she insists, not sure why she's pressing the point, because it's not like she wanted him to be angry at her, but maybe after staring at them all night and thinking of all the problems their absence would cause, she's not able to let it go.

"And you're a very important person."  He took up her hand again.  "That's all there is to it."

 

 

 

Pepper's been to the doctor a lot, mostly because she doesn't slow down even when she's sick and works herself to the bone, but she can't think of a person who was better at keeping her company in the hospital than Tony.

(which, honestly, is surprising, considering how much he hates hospitals and listening to doctors when he's the one playing patient.)

Even though she's embarrassed about calling him ( _about needing him_ ), Pepper's glad he's there.  He tells her jokes when the wait gets too boring, and flirts with the nurses to get them to bring her Jell-O even though it wasn't meal time, and when she's thrown into a panic about how hard it is for her to draw a breath, he sits on the very edge of the bed and rubs circles into her back, talking about the mechanics of his inventions in an attempt to lull her back to calm so she can focus on the sound of his voice instead of the pain.  Pepper keeps expecting him to leave, but he stays, making funny faces during the stitches and holding her hand while the doctors talk about the possibility of surgery and insisting that the police come back tomorrow to get her report because she had gone through enough tonight.  It's like having her own personal body guard and nurse rolled into one.

They keep her overnight, and even though she tries to stay awake, she falls asleep.  When she jerks awake in the middle of the night, echoes of the crash reverberating in her brain and the sudden jackknifing motion of sitting up in bed sending shock waves of her body, Pepper almost thinks that the sight of him beside her has been pulled out of thin air, like she wasn't fully awake yet.

"You're still here."  The words come out rushed, and in the darkness, he blinks at her, the chair creaking underneath him as he moves closer.  "I thought you would have left by now."

"Of course I'm still here."  He sounds mildly offended that she assumed he would leave.  "When your best friend is in the hospital, you stay."

There's a pause where they both seem to take a moment and realize for the first time that somewhere along the line they  _had_ become each others best friends, and then Tony picks up the conversation again.

"I've been thinking about that driver."

"Who?"

"The one that hit you."  It's dark, but Pepper still can make out the way that his hands clench into fists, over and over.  "How he just fell asleep."

Pepper sighed.  "I wish I was asleep."

"I'm serious."  Pepper wants to point out how many times they had been in this situation but reverse, where Tony was hurt and Pepper kept watch and she tried to impress on him the gravity of the situation.  "He could have killed you."

"But he didn't."

"He could have."  It was one of the first times that she had seen him really and truly angry.  "Aren't you upset?"

"No."  She wasn't.  As much as she wishes it didn't happen, as terrified as she is at getting back into the car, she could not be angry at the man.  She had seen him, babbling his apologies as he's wheeled past her on the gurney.  It seems like he'd already paid enough.  "He was tired.  He had to get the shipment there in time.  People do what they have to do, and driving through the night was one of them."

"He should have pulled over."  

"He should have had a long enough break from driving that he could sleep without losing pay."  Pepper didn't know where the bite in her voice was coming from, other than the fact that this was one of those moments that despite how generous Tony is with his money, there's no way to avoid the fact that he had never grown up having to trade comforts for necessities.  "It's the fault of the system, Tony, not that man's."

"Still."  He's sulking.  Pepper hates it when he sulks.  "He could have done serious damage."

"I'm alive, Tony.  And like you said, I'll be okay."

Her hand finds his in the darkness, and this time, he doesn't let go.

 

 

 When it comes time to take her home, Tony is the one who signs the paper and promises the nurses that he'll look after there.  It's Tony that drives, too, noticeably slower than he normally would, but that's probably only because she was holding onto the seat belt so hard her knuckles were white and she kept closing her eyes when he went around turns, like she kept thinking that she would see a semi looming above them.

Pepper isn't used to being the one who has to ask for help, especially between them, so when he comes to a lurching stop in front of her apartment building that sends pain screaming up her spine, she throws the door open without waiting for his assistance and has to hang onto the door to keep her from tumbling to the ground.

"Easy there."  He had an arm around her before she had the chance to really stumble, like he had been expecting it the whole time.  "Just take it easy, alright?  I'm here to help."

He was just as good at helping as he was at keeping her company, half carrying her up the stairs and labeling her medication before helping her into bed.  The elderly woman from across the hall was just as helpful as Pepper had expected her to be, coming to the hospital with a grocery bag full of soft, baggy clothes, which meant that Pepper didn't even need to change before she could feel herself falling asleep.

"You need anything else?"  Now that Tony didn't have a job to do, he looked awkward, his hands tapping out a pattern on the doorframe as he watched her.  "Thinking of heading out."

"Yeah."  Even that short amount of time had been enough for her muscles to pull taught again, and its with a visible effort that she lifts herself away from the pillows long enough to look at him.  "Stay?"

"Yeah."  He shoves away from the door frame and stumbles across the room to her, kicking off his shoes and throwing his jacket across the back of her desk chair.  "Anything."

She doesn't look at him as he crawls into bed, just stares up at the ceiling as the mattress dips and settles.

"Hey Pepper?"  

She's almost expecting him to say he wants to leave, but he just turns on his side, his hand barely brushing her hip.  "Yeah, Tony?"

"I'm really glad you're going to be okay."

He sounds choked up, and Pepper realizes for a moment how terrible these past few hours must have been for him, how that phone call was a moment of de javu where he had to spend each minute of the drive to the hospital telling him that this was different, that she was okay, that it was not the same as it was when he got the call about his parents.  After everything, he was Howard's first person to think of calling, too, according to the hospital records.

"Me too, Tony.  Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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